Play dates

Hi just curious if any of you arrange play dates for your child. I have one eight year old daughter and I make an effort to try to arrange play dates with folks from her school as she doesn’t have a sibling or cousins (all of them are in America) to play with but I don’t get much response from her school mates. I know she will probably arrange her own play dates in the upcoming years but it can be a bit disheartening to not get much response especially during the school holidays. This is when I miss family as I know my daughter would have the company of her cousins if in the US. I guess people don’t want to look after someone else’s child or they already have the support network I just don’t get it

That's strange, play dates in Twickenham seem to work as you'd expect.  We invite kids over sometimes after school, they usually stay until after dinner then we take them home.  Later, they invite our kid for the same.

My eldest only turned 5 last week, but we keep saying we need to have her peeps over.  We are terrible planners though.

Hi just curious if any of you arrange play dates for your child. I have one eight year old daughter and I make an effort to try to arrange play dates with folks from her school as she doesn’t have a sibling or cousins (all of them are in America) to play with but I don’t get much response from her school mates. I know she will probably arrange her own play dates in the upcoming years but it can be a bit disheartening to not get much response especially during the school holidays. This is when I miss family as I know my daughter would have the company of her cousins if in the US. I guess people don’t want to look after someone else’s child or they already have the support network I just don’t get it

Does she do any activities outside of school? It might be easier to arrange groups when they share extra interests. But the whole play date concept is weird to me as a non parent. I didn't really have those when I was a kid, I had a couple friends in the place I grew up and we'd go to each others houses and that was the extent of it besides sports/music events.

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I grew up playing with neighbourhood kids but we live in the country so there are no other kids around. She also goes to a small school with only 9 girls in her class so I feel I have to make an effort to invite them around mine. She doesn’t want to participate in activities during the weekend so I try to invite her friends around to keep her occupied I don’t expect others to return the favour and she has a few good friends it’s just our life would be easier if some of these parents were more interested

Not a parent, but if she’s in such a small class and maybe doesn’t gel well enough with those girls to want to have play dates, would she maybe have any interest in taking some type of class or something?? Just somewhere she could meet more people and find people she gets along with enough to want to have play dates with?

Sorry, I'm tired and it's been a long day. This was probably covered, but I'm missing it.  Is it the Mom here who is trying to set this all up? Did the daughter ask to have it set up? If not, ummmm.... maybe she doesn't actually want to have those kids over?  Has she been asked if she'd like to have them over?

Girl Guides are a decent organization, I hear. Lots of chances to be around other girls. And if the daughter then asks if some of them can come over to play, it might be good to facilitate that.

On the other hand, kids that young just don't think about organising stuff like that.  They just take each moment as it comes and it's great for a mom to encourage friendships. 

We had a kid my son's age who lived just around the corner for years.  You'd think that they would be playing together in the street and best friends since they were even in the same class.  Nope, wouldn't have anything to do with each other.  Years later, after the kid has moved, they are good friends.

On the other hand, kids that young just don't think about organising stuff like that.  They just take each moment as it comes and it's great for a mom to encourage friendships. 

We had a kid my son's age who lived just around the corner for years.  You'd think that they would be playing together in the street and best friends since they were even in the same class.  Nope, wouldn't have anything to do with each other.  Years later, after the kid has moved, they are good friends.

I dunno - my kid used to ask me if her best buddy could come over, back when she was in nursery school. Unfortunately, we lived in a neighborhood that made that impossible, but we did make arrangments for the two of them to play at a park in a better area every couple of weeks, with one or the other of us parents doing the picnic lunch. But the Daughter is an odd bird (she was a bit, no a lot, on the precocious side) so ....? I do think it's better for the kid to ask for things to be arranged, as just living in the same street/of the same age/at the same school doesn't necessarily mean the kids like each other or want to hang out.

Stumbling down memory lane here - I threw the Daughter the local equivalent of a Chucky Cheese birthday party once. (I knew the manager and we got a huge discount - basically all I had to pay for was the pizza at cost.) This was, I think, kindergarten. Sent invites to the class of 20. Got a handful of RSVPs (the rest didn't bother to reply one way or the other).  Only one kid showed up on the day (we were expecting six) and her babysitter also came. So she had a good time anyway.

I later made the mistake (4th grade, in another state and a nicer neighborhood) of throwing her a surprise birthday party and inviting several of her classmates. Turned out that a couple of them were ~not~ her friends and it was awkward. Once those girls went home, and the sleepover began, it improved a lot. But ever since then I've been in the "hands off unless asked" mode regarding her social life, not wanting to be too helicopter-mom-ish. All that kind of makes me look askance at parents "arranging" their kids social lives - unless asked to do so. Which is another thing entirely.

My daughter has expressed interest in play dates but she is not interested in extra curricular activities she would rather have a friend over to play The parents at her school just aren’t interested or friendly enough

My daughter has expressed interest in play dates but she is not interested in extra curricular activities she would rather have a friend over to play The parents at her school just aren’t interested or friendly enough

Bummer.  Are these play dates for the kiddos to come over (mom drops them off) or the kiddos come over while mom (or dad) stays for tea?

I wonder if the kids (the invitees) are being asked if they want to visit or not....? I know we are not a typical family, but if the Daughter had said she wanted to have Janie come to our house to play, I'd have had her invite Janie. (AKA, Janie could ask her mom, and if Janie had told the Daughter she wanted to come over, a note to be given to Janie's mom with the invite for an afternoon would go back through the Daughter to Janie to give to her mom.)

But I'm old fashioned, and really not sure what the situation is there.

Good luck!

Nowadays it is much simpler! Parents WhatsApp each other!


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Hi just curious if any of you arrange play dates for your child.

Our almost 4-year old daughter had one today with her almost 5-year old friend from when they both went to the same pre-school. They hadn't seen each other for about 8 months now that the older friend is in school, but our daughter never stopped talking about Ella and asking when she could see Ella again, and according to Ella's mother, Ella never stopped talking about getting together, either.

So yes, we do them, but it took a long time to set up, and didn't happen until both girls were on school holidays.